um.
FOOTNOTES:
[95:1] "_Juniper._ Go get white of egg and a little Flax, and close the
breach of the head; it is the most conducible thing that can be."--BEN
JONSON, _The Case Altered_, act ii, sc. 4.
[96:1] "From the abundant harvests of this elegant weed on the upland
pastures, prepared and manufactured by supernatural skill, 'the good
people' were wont, in the olden time, to procure the necessary supplies
of linen!"--JOHNSTON.
FLOWER-DE-LUCE.
(1) _Perdita._
Lilies of all kinds,
The Flower-de-luce being one.
_Winters Tale_, act iv, sc. 4 (126).
(2) _K. Henry._
What sayest thou, my fair Flower-de-luce?
_Henry V_, act v, sc. 2 (323).
(3) _Messenger._
Cropped are the Flower-de-luces in your arms;
Of England's coat one half is cut away.
_1st Henry VI_, act i, sc. 1 (80).
(4) _Pucelle._
I am prepared; here is my keen-edged sword
Deck'd with five Flower-de-luces on each side.
_Ibid._, act i, sc. 2 (98).
(5) _York._
A sceptre shall it have, have I a soul,
On which I'll toss the Flower-de-luce of France.
_2nd Henry VI_, act v, sc. 1 (10).
Out of these five passages four relate to the Fleur-de-luce as the
cognizance of France, and much learned ink has been spilled in the
endeavour to find out what flower, if any, was intended to be
represented, so that Mr. Planche says that "next to the origin of
heraldry itself, perhaps nothing connected with it has given rise to so
much controversy as the origin of this celebrated charge." It has been
at various times asserted to be an Iris, a Lily, a sword-hilt, a
spearhead, and a toad, or to be simply the Fleur de St. Louis. _Adhuc
sub judice lis est_--and it is never likely to be satisfactorily
settled. I need not therefore dwell on it, especially as my present
business is to settle not what the Fleur-de-luce meant in the arms of
France, but what it meant in Shakespeare's writings. But here the same
difficulty at once meets us, some writers affirming stoutly that it is a
Lily, others as stoutly that it is an Iris. For the Lily theory there
are the facts that Shakespeare calls it one of the Lilies, and that the
other way of spelling it is Fleur-de-lys. I find also a strong
confirmation o
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